So Many Reds Hall of Famers......

There are two Durham Bulls players in the Baseball Hall of Fame, or at least there will be later on this summer.  There is former Astros and Reds second baseman Joe Morgan.....

who actually came through Durham in the early 1960s while the team was an Astros affiliate.  There is also Chipper Jones, who is going into the Hall of Fame this summer.

Chipper came through Durham while they were a Braves affiliate in the early 1990s.  I am using Chipper's 1991 Topps card for this post, but he actually has several Durham Bulls cards out there.  Morgan has a recent one too.  

That's two Hall of Famers off of the Durham Bulls who have been enshrined in Cooperstown.  Then there is the Cincinnati Reds Hall of Fame.  The Bulls actually have three players who are members of that franchise's Hall of Fame.  Joe Morgan is in their Hall of Fame for his role with the 1970s Big Red Machine teams that won a pair of World Series titles.  

Pitcher Johnny Vander Meer also played for the Bulls and appears in the Reds Hall of Fame.....

being best remembered as the only Major League pitcher to throw no-hitter in back to back starts.  The prime of his career was interrupted by World War II, but his pitching numbers with the Reds prior to his service time were very good.  Which brings me to my newest card, obviously the player was on the Durham Bulls and is now in the Reds Hall of Fame.  

Card front....

Which shows off the signature of the National League's 1940 MVP, Reds first baseman Frank McCormick.  In the six years that I have written in this space, I do not think that I have ever posted a cut signature.  Well, I think I have a Kyle Skipworth out of Topps Pro Debut, so outside of that one this is all that I have in my collection.  The signature is on a notecard and comes out of the Donruss Limited Cuts set.  I do not know much about this product, but I am pretty sure that the main purpose of buying these cards is to get cut signatures.  

They just happen to be a little less expensive than some of the other cut autograph products.  I know that McCormick, who died in 1982, has other autographs done in this fashion.  I know there is a Leaf one, not sure if Upper Deck has ever put him into a set.  

Card back....  

which gives a little snippet into the career of Frank McCormick.  I will give you a little more.  He played for the Bulls in 1936, most importantly while he was there, Bulls manager Johnny Gooch changed how he gripped his bat.  The changes allowed McCormick to hit over .380 with the Bulls, record more than 200 hits, and almost 50 doubles during is one season with the team.  He had several great seasons during the late 1930s through the mid 1940s, his best year's are in line with those of Hall of Famers, but his career was just too short.

My favorite McCormick stat, which I am borrowing from SABR, shows the difference between the slugging first baseman of the 1930s and 1940s, and their modern equivalents.  In almost 6,000 career at bats McCormick struck out 189 times, which is almost the same number of strikeouts Ryan Howard had in 2007.  There were three seasons during his career where he had more home runs than strikeouts.  During his thirteen year career, there was only one season where he had more strikeouts than doubles.  Amazing.

McCormick's best season, as mentioned before, was his 1940 MVP campaign.  His 1944 season was comparable, but winning the World Series in 1940 tilts the argument in favor of the earlier season.